Mistakes Most First-Time Entrepreneurs Do | Part 1

When I started my bow ties business, I made a LOT of mistakes. Of course, at that time I was sure I was doing everything right despite the fact that I didn’t see the results I was aiming for. Because of that, quite often I felt desperate, wanted to give up and start everything from scratch. But the fear of being stuck at the same point I was at that time just with another project was stronger. That’s why I never gave up and finally got on the right track. I also had a chance to meet some first-time and experienced entrepreneurs and all of them were also struggling at the beginning. All those mistakes are quite similar and I simply have to share them with you guys! So here they are, six mistakes most first-time entrepreneurs do.

Mistake No. 1: Expecting Overnight Success

The most common mistake the first-time entrepreneurs do is that they see everything through pink glasses and naively expect everything to be easy and smooth. On social media, we see only the brands with large followers base, engaging content and we follow this kind of brands! Meanwhile, there are much more brands that no one knows about because they don’t have a lot of followers and only some people share their content. The thing is, we forget these brands exist. That’s why when we come up with an idea that we believe could allow us to do what we enjoy and at the same time earn money, we become super excited and believe that every person on this planet will be mesmerized by our genius idea and everyone will need it whether it’s a product, service or something else. No. No one cares. You have to convince every person why your idea is special and what value it provides. Only by working towards your success persistently, you’ll finally reach your goal but you must remember, that a quick success means short success. Even your best friend will follow your business’s social media accounts only because you’re besties. You have to provide superb content and provide it consistently.

Mistake No. 2: Not Asking for Help

Another mistake first-time entrepreneurs do is pretending to know everything and to be able to do everything on their own. The thing is, you’re a First-Time Entrepreneur. You can’t know everything and you can’t do everything alone unless you want your business to grow extremely slowly and risk to make a fatal mistake that could lead you to bankruptcy. I suggest you ask for help, meet more experienced people than you are, talk to them and ask for advice when you need one. Don’t just trust your gut or your friend who knows nothing about business. Only by reaching out to right people you can learn from them and adapt their knowledge to your business. Also, ask for help with your daily tasks. There’re always some tasks that don’t require your knowledge and even though they might be important, you can find another person to do that. For example, if you need to make an email list of possible business partners and cold email them or if you need to pack the orders and send them, these tasks can be done by anyone so ask your family or friends to help you if you’re on a budget or you can find a virtual assistant for online tasks and get an intern to deal with stuff like packaging. My point is, you have you be smart and know your priorities. Don’t do everything alone and ask for help when you need it.

Mistake No. 3: Changing Mind Too Often

The third mistake a lot of entrepreneurs do is changing their mind way too often. When it comes to decisions such as branding, business model, products, target customers or any other aspect of a business, long-term decisions have to be made. That’s where most first-time entrepreneurs waste money and time. I’ve heard stories how people wasted more than one year deciding how their brand should look like, on what products they want to concentrate, if they will be B2B or B2C business and so on. One entrepreneur told me how she wanted to make her enterprise perfect from the beginning so she hired a branding agency but wasn’t happy with the final result so after a month she stopped her sales and hired a freelancer to re-do the branding but even after that she realised that she wasn’t satisfied so she re-done everything once again by herself. Each time branding process took few months plus the time to get new labels, packaging, website, etc. In the end, she still wasn’t happy about the logo and some other details but she just couldn’t afford to rebrand her brand once again. You can imagine how long it took and how expensive it was, and the result? Well, after more than one year her business was at the same point as it was at the beginning, the only difference was that the entrepreneur wasn’t so enthusiastic as she was before and she lost tons of money only because she couldn’t make a decision and stick to it. There always be various opportunities and it’s difficult to make long-term decisions when creating an enterprise but it’s incredibly important to do a research, talk to experts, make the best decisions in a timely manner and stick to them.

I hope that by being aware of these mistakes, you’ll be a better entrepreneur than I was at the beginning. However, these aren’t all main mistakes, the next three will be shared next week so stay tuned!